House sitting in Vancouver
Field report · updated 2026-07-29 · live corpus
For pet parents · what actually happened
Drew 2+ applicants sitters
84%
about 8 in 10 · 2+ applications in 48h · n=443 · ±3pp
43 measured cities run 22–95% · median 77%
Filled to the cap in 48h
37%
filled to the five-application cap · each watched from zero applications
speed, not eventual success
Sits provably completed
1,171
in the last 12 months · at least 3,777 since 2014 · each required a chosen sitter
by year (floors): 2023 589 · 2024 866 · 2025 1,194
Open sits9767 homes
Applicants / sit2.1median 1 across cities
Median stay7 nights58% run a week+
Posting lead9 wkhalf 40–132d out
Gapless days1304 back-to-back sits · 31 Jul
Floors, not verdicts — fast-filling listings escape measurement, and these are 48-hour rates: a speed gauge; many sits fill after the window. · How we measure →
Plan your dates in Vancouvergood
Pick your window. We chain the open sits that hand over cleanly inside it — computed right here, nothing sent anywhere.
The open listings chain into 130 consecutive housed days across 4 back-to-back sits beginning 31 Jul — good, against the cities we track.
31 Jul4 handovers · 130 nights8 Dec
Remove that chain and 47 days, 40 days, 37 days (+1 more) remain — 5 sitters could live here at once.
todayopen sits · next 90 days · never a day with nothing open+90 d
Supply by start month
Hosts post about 9 weeks ahead (half between 40–132 days) — for far-out dates, most options don't exist yet.
Listing? Posting about 9 weeks out is normal here.
For sitters · competition right nowcompetitive
Open Vancouver listings average 2.1 applicants, and 30% currently have none at all.
Stays & pets
The median stay is 7 nights; 58% run a week or longer.
≤3 nights 24%4–7 29%8–14 26%15–28 21%29+ 1%
Plan around the animals first — they are the job.
dogs only 48%dogs + cats 10%cats only 36%other / no pets 6%
How Vancouver compares
Sitter competition (competitive)78th percentile
Open supply (below the median)44th percentile
Chainability (good)72nd percentile
Percentile rank among the 26 tracked cities with meaningful supply. Competition reads sitter-side: a higher percentile means more applicants per open listing — harder for sitters, busier for owners.
Common questions
Will my pet-sitting listing get applicants in Vancouver?
Measured, not guessed: of 443 Vancouver listings watched from zero applications, 84% received at least two applications within 48 hours, and 37% reached the five-application cap. Both are floors — fast-filling listings are the ones most likely to escape measurement — and both are 48-hour rates: listings often keep drawing applications after the window we count.
Do house sits actually get filled in Vancouver?
Yes — at least 3,777 sits have provably completed in Vancouver since 2014, 1,171 of them ending in the last 12 months. A completion requires a chosen sitter, so every one had at least one real application. These are floors from listing histories, and they cannot be turned into a fill rate: sits that went unfilled leave no trace, so there is no denominator.
How many sitters apply to a house sit in Vancouver?
Open listings currently average 2.1 applicants, 30% have none yet, and only 38% have three or more — snapshots across 97 live listings at last refresh, not final tallies.
How far in advance are Vancouver house sits posted?
The median listing appears about 9 weeks before its start date; half post between 40 and 132 days out.
How long is a typical house sit in Vancouver?
The median stay is 7 nights, and 58% of open sits run a week or longer.
Can you live in Vancouver full-time on house sits?
Today's board chains into 130 consecutive housed days across 4 back-to-back sits beginning 31 Jul. That is one bookable itinerary from live listings — it moves daily as sits are taken and posted.
Compare markets
How these figures are computed
Open sits — live listings with a current or future date window; a home with several windows counts once per window.
Applicants — the count reported on each open listing at last refresh.
Posting lead — days between a listing first appearing and its start date, median across open listings.
Gapless days — the longest bookable run of consecutive covered days assembled from open sits beginning within the next 90 days: no overlaps, each sit starting the day the previous one ends.
Judgment words (“competitive”, “good”) are percentiles against the 26 cities in this corpus with meaningful supply — never editorial.
Full methodology — how these are measured, and what they cannot say.